SHAH ALAM, March 31 — If you want to generate millions of ringgit in sales for your business, then you should consider listening to other people’s advice and applying it well.
After all, that was what Durian Crepe Rabi’s founder Robiatul Adawiah Ibrahim, 37, said, which turned her struggling dessert venture into a highly lucrative business. And she does have the track record to back it up, having raked in millions from crepe sales.
“There was a time when I wanted to give up, especially when I just started trading. At that time, I was still working as a kindergarten teacher, with a RM900 monthly salary, and taking orders of various types of dishes, just as long as I could earn something.
“But I recalled the advice from the trainer of an online class I joined, who said not to give up, so I decided to take up the challenge.
“It really was tiring as there were quite a lot of orders, but when I thought of having a comfortable life for my children and family, I did not give up. Thankfully, things went smoothly for my business,” she told Bernama recently.
Robiatul had a tough start as a food entrepreneur, having decided to offer a wide variety of dishes for sale, including roast chicken, pasta, and lunch sets, working out of a rented home in Kampung Sungai Penchala, Damansara, from 2015 to 2017.
However, she overcame the challenges and decided to quit her teaching job in 2018 and focus on being an entrepreneur after finally managing to generate RM20,000 in sales annually.
2018 was also when Robiatul’s durian crepe went viral, which resulted in a rise in demand for her desserts, and she ended up being able to sell over 100 packs a day.
But that was also thanks to her taking the advice given by others to heart, as she applied what she learned in various entrepreneurial classes by building a network of agents to market her crepe and reach a wider customer base.
With ten agents in her budding marketing network of Whatsapp groups, Robiatul saw her sales reaching RM150,000 a year and then decided to focus solely on her durian crepe business.
The business expansion included renting a house to be the operations centre and upping production to 20,000 packs a month, resulting in sales hitting RM1.3 million in 2019. She even had to enter into a contract with a D24 durian supplier to ensure a constant, steady supply of fresh durian for her crepe.
Customer demand for her durian crepe kept on rising, especially when the movement control order was imposed during the Covid-19 pandemic, hitting a high of over RM4 million in sales in 2021.
In recognition of her success, Robiatul was chosen as the Federal Territories Islamic Religious Council’s (MAIWP) Entrepreneur Icon last year.
— Bernama
